‘An anchor in turbulent times’

Saturday

Jan 7, 2017 at 3:25 PMJan 7, 2017 at 5:12 PM

Roger Phillips Record Staff Writer @rphillipsblog

STOCKTON — After delivering his victory speech in a jam-packed downtown warehouse on the night of his election as Stockton’s mayor two months ago, Michael Tubbs stepped off the stage and quickly located City Councilman Elbert Holman in the midst of the crowd.

“We embraced, and in my ear he said, ‘I want you as the vice mayor,’ ” Holman recalled last week. “ ‘Will you accept it?’ ”

And with that request on the night of Nov. 8, Tubbs made the first significant decision of his fledgling and historic mayoral tenure.

Holman’s selection will become official Tuesday night at the Bob Hope Theatre at the same ceremony where Tubbs and three council members will be sworn into office. Holman will replace Councilwoman Christina Fugazi, the city’s second-in-command for the past two years under former Mayor Anthony Silva.

At 67, Holman is the oldest of the seven council members. At 26, Tubbs is the youngest mayor ever of a large American city.

“There are some things only life can teach you,” Tubbs said. “Having the vice mayor be someone who is really seasoned and really wise is a benefit not only for me but for the entire city.”

Holman said, “What I think I bring to the table for him is the fact that I’ve lived in Stockton for 67 years. I haven’t lived anywhere else. … I bring that kind of experience to the table that I think he’ll be able to glean from.”

Cool under pressure

The City Council appointed Holman eight years ago to fill the vacant seat representing District 1 in north Stockton after Steve Bestolarides left for a spot on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors.

“It’s still one of my best votes,” said Supervisor Kathy Miller, who was on the council that selected Holman. “He’s an individual that has served with a lot of integrity and a lot of heart.”

The nation’s economy was collapsing and Stockton’s finances were a disaster when Holman took office on Jan. 7, 2009. Holman had little sense of the magnitude of the mess he was walking into.

There were fears at one point that Stockton would be unable to meet its payroll. The 300,000-resident city was broke. Though later surpassed by Detroit, for a time Stockton was the largest U.S. city ever to enter bankruptcy when it filed for Chapter 9 in 2012.

“The pressures were extreme,” City Manager Kurt Wilson recalled last week. “Tensions in the building were extremely high. (Holman’s) demeanor and his stabilizing personality were very welcome. He doesn’t panic under pressure. He continued to take the thoughtful approach.”

Holman is proud of the institutional knowledge he brings to the council. At one point two years ago, his six years of service were as many as the other six council members combined.

He is the only councilmember to serve from the early years of Stockton’s fiscal catastrophe to the early years of a recovery that now includes $70 million in reserves. He takes pride in having been there through every phase of the process.

“I’m the only council member that was there for every single vote of the fiscal crisis,” Holman said.

Tubbs was an 18-year-old freshman at Stanford University when Holman joined the council.

“He’s not one to be flashy or talk about all he’s done,” Tubbs said. “I’ve really appreciated his wisdom, his leadership.”

Hard lessons

Holman, a 1967 graduate of Edison High School, is a product of south Stockton who worked the blazing-hot summer fields of his youth picking tomatoes and peaches to bring money home to his family.

“We would walk from Spring Street to downtown Stockton at 4 a.m. and catch a labor bus, and we would go and work side by side with the braceros,” Holman recalled.

It was the only sort of job available to a 12-year-old black kid in Stockton more than one-half century ago.

“I never had a paper route, never could work at a gas station, be a bag boy at a store,” Holman said. “Those kinds of jobs weren’t open to us. If we wanted to make money as a kid, we had to go out to the fields and pick fruit, do the hard labor kind of jobs.”

He learned another hard lesson in his teen years when he was pulled over one day by a Stockton police officer while driving on the Miracle Mile. Back then, if you were black you were supposed to stay south of Main Street.

“He walked over to the car and he says, ‘What are you doing out here?’ ” Holman recalled. “And I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘Where do you live?’ I said, ‘I live on the south side.’ He says, ‘Don’t you think you ought to be getting back over there?’ You didn’t argue. It was, like, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”

After high school, Holman had no thoughts of a career in law enforcement, choosing instead to major in business at University of the Pacific. But he was married with one daughter and another on the way, and money was tight, so he decided to take the test to become a San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputy.

A salary of $700 a month sounded pretty good in 1971, and when he was offered a job by the Sheriff’s Office, Holman gladly accepted. Law enforcement became his career.

“It was like throwing a fish into water,” Holman said. “It appealed to me. It was my calling.”

A short retirement

A career in politics was nowhere on his radar when Holman retired 12 years ago after 34 years in law enforcement. But Holman says he accepted an invitation to take a 10-week “good government” class in 2008, and he quickly became intrigued.

“He had a very interesting background in law enforcement,” recalled retired Pacific political science Professor Bob Benedetti, one of the instructors in the good government program. “He was more knowledgeable than many people. We were encouraged that he might be willing to run for office.”

Instead of running, Holman submitted an application when Bestolarides’ seat on the City Council became available. So did 10 other people, but on the night of the public interviews, Holman aced the question-and-answer session and earned the appointment.

Benedetti says his early faith in Holman has proven justified.

“I always thought he was very stable,” Benedetti said. “He didn’t run off after policies that were flashes in the pan. He was an anchor in turbulent times.”

Tubbs often used Holman as a sounding board during his four years as Stockton’s District 6 councilman representing the south side. Holman will continue to be someone Tubbs can bounce ideas off of in the coming two years and also will run any council meetings the mayor is unable to attend.

Fugazi, who supported Silva’s re-election bid, said she knew Tubbs would choose his own vice mayor when he was elected. She praised Tubbs’ selection of Holman.

“Elbert is a fantastic choice,” Fugazi said. “He is very familiar with the needs of the city as well as the scope of work that we do as a council. And one thing Elbert has that none of the rest of us has is he’s retired.”

Tubbs officially became Stockton’s first black mayor on New Year’s Day. Holman will be at least the fourth black vice mayor of Stockton, serving in a position previously filled by Ralph Lee White, Leslie Martin and the late Floyd Weaver.

“I’m trying to get every little bit out of (Holman) while I have him up here on the dais,” Tubbs said. “Once he’s gone he’ll be missed by me, by the rest of the council, and by the city.”

But Holman said he may not be finished with politics when he terms out in two years at the youthful age of 69.

“If I get called, I’m going to respond,” Holman said. “It’s just there. It will always be there.”

— Contact reporter Roger Phillips at (209) 546-8299 or rphillips@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/phillipsblog and on Twitter @rphillipsblog.

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